Look at work with fresh eyes

When I was growing up, being part of the baby boom generation meant you were young, rebellious and out to change the world. Today it means you are at retirement age and winding down your career — or does it?

I feel many people, baby boomers and those younger, have missed the connection between work and health. All too often, work is what you do to earn money to spend in order to enjoy life. If that is all work is, then you are wasting one-third of your life. If you are looking forward to retirement so you can stop working, then I hope you can redirect your thinking on the meaning of work.

We were made to work. From a biblical perspective, in the very beginning God put Adam to work. Genesis tells us, “The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it” (2:15). Work is not punishment. It is a gift from God. God intended for humans to be productive and the value of work is intrinsic.

Many people feel trapped in jobs they hate because they need the paycheck or the health insurance. They don’t sense a calling or passion about their work. Someone else, however, might be happy in those jobs, and not because they earn a pile of money.

I see patients every day who make minimum wage and love what they do. They love their encounters with people and the tangible result of their work. They love providing a service to others. Keeping another person’s home, hauling garbage, providing child care — these are not glamorous jobs. The people who do them may not receive what I consider a fair wage, but they are rarely bitter because many of them understand the dignity and the value of work in itself, not because of what society says it is worth in annual income.

If you let people determine the value of your work based on how much money you earn, you’re missing the point. If your work equals money, then work can become your god. In fact, working in order to make money can be an incredibly destructive behavior. And in the end, all that money does not buy happiness or meaning.

That is why retirement from a job is not the end of work.

Woody Burton started his first job bagging groceries at Kroger at age 16. He worked 40 hours a week while he was in college. He worked as a school administrator in Arkansas for 20 years and retired in June as the principal of West Memphis Junior High. He is proud that his school was one of 15 exceptional schools in the state.

He admits that he still dreams about school, but now he works in his church’s food pantry and volunteers at a farmers market. His wife, Blair, retired with him after 40 years of teaching eighth grade math. Now she exercises daily and loves feeling her arm muscles get stronger. They both find it fun to wake up and ask, “What will I do today?” For them, work means not “earning a living” but “making a contribution to society.”

Labor Day was created to celebrate the organized labor movement in America. But, as an aging baby boomer, I would like to claim today for something more than its original intent. Work is what we do on a daily basis to connect to the wider meaning of our lives. Our labors directly link us to the fundamental joys and happiness of life. Work is not about the money. It is about what makes us fully alive.